The action is being taken on behalf of Victor Fuentes, a 1991 escapee from Cuba who in 2004 formed a church with his wife Annette in Las Vegas called The Ministerio Roco Solida Church, or Solid Rock Church.

“I’m very disappointed with the federal government right now because, coming from Cuba, I know what an overrun country by the government can do to its people,” Fuentes said in a telephone interview. “That is the reason I came to the United States of America. Because my country is overrun by the Communist regime of Fidel Castro.

“And what is happening right now is all our liberty and freedoms are being taken away from me specifically with what the government has done to us and our property in Amargosa Valley,” he said.

The Nevada Policy Research Institute’s CJCL is filing a negligence claim for damages on behalf of his church with the federal agency.

Joseph Becker, chief legal officer and director of CJCL, said the claim for the flooding damage will be at least $86,000 based on one professional estimate. But the permanent loss of the streams is a much more complex issue that the center is still investigating, he said.

“I mean, at a minimum, if you are going to take property, constitutionally it would have to be in a public interest and you have to pay for it,” he said. “We’re not sure they can demonstrate a public use and certainly we know they didn’t pay for it.

“And even aside from that issue, of course, the first claim, that being the negligence claim, you can’t reroute water in a negligent way such that it floods private property,” Becker said.

In 2006, Fuentes purchased a 40-acre, Wild West-themed camp in the Amargosa Valley for $500,000, using a combination of member contributions and his own money. After purchasing the property Fuentes spent another $700,000 refurbishing buildings, installing a septic system and retrofitting elements of the camp — which was renamed “Patch of Heaven.”

By 2010, Fuentes said the property was booked “nearly every weekend” with church groups and campers. The main attractions of the camp were two spring-fed streams flowing through the property, and a swimming pond.

Victor Fuentes at Patch of Heaven.

In the fall of 2010, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began rerouting the streams away from the camp. The case alleges the streams – which had flowed through the property since the 1800s – were diverted to go around the camp, cutting off its recreational and baptismal waters.

The agency completed the rerouting project in early December 2010. On Dec. 23, just before Christmas, rain raised the stream waters over the federal agency’s constructed banks, flooding Patch of Heaven. The camp was submerged in mud and muddy water, severely damaging the buildings and other property.

“It was devastating,” Annette Fuentes said. “Seeing all the work we put into [the camp] ruined by some type of government negligence was unbelievable.”

In addition to the structural damage, the Fuenteses say the overall value of the camp property is now significantly less. Not only has the camp been deprived of its water source, but it is now on a government-created flood plain.

Patch of Heaven flooded.

The Fuenteses reached out to several government officials for help, but received few responses.

“The government acts like a separate entity from the people – they are there, and we are here,” Victor Fuentes said.

The article quoted Cynthia Martinez, manager of the Desert National Wildlife Refuge complex, who said the alignment is the result of a 15-year management plan. The plan was discussed at public meetings in 2008, including one at the Amargosa Valley Community Center, Martinez said. She said the Fish and Wildlife Service isn’t rerouting the channel but restoring it to its original path.

The restoration of the channel is designed to help the speckled dace, an endangered species of fish, Martinez said.

Speckled dace. / Photo: Utah Division of Wildlife Resources.

“The reason the refuge was established was for threatened and endangered species. One of the restoration techniques we have is to restore their native habitat. That means going back and reconstructing outflow channels from all these springs back in their hydrologically correct direction,” Martinez said.

But Becker said he has maps from the late 1800s showing the water flowing through the property in the same location before it was “hijacked” by the federal agency.

It is the second action taken by the CJCL. In November it filed a lawsuit against the state of Nevada and the Public Utilities Commission alleging the employment of a state lawmaker violated the state constitution’s separation of powers clause.

Sen. Mo Denis, D-Las Vegas, left the job about the time the lawsuit was filed, but the case is being pursued by the CJCL because of the ramifications for other lawmakers serving in state or local government public jobs.

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Audio clips:

Joseph Becker, chief legal officer and director of CJCL, says the federal government cannot act in a negligent manner:

Who rerouted these streams from their “BLM-Mandated” channels in the first place? Don’t rivers change course on certain occasions? Does the BLM regularly dictate to the Earth where it is allowed to run rivers. Does our planet have access to all the necessary forms it needs to request permission to move it’s streams and rivers?